Matt Walsh recently went all around the world asking what a woman is, but I think we need to ask a prerequisite question. What is a man?
Courage, strength, wisdom, provision, leadership, humility, and reverence - all can be used to describe a good man. As should go without saying, women and children can also have these traits, and many men lack all of these. But a good man is characterized by a relative abundance of the qualities which historically has been meant by the word "manly."
Yet I want to not brag about being a good man myself as I tell you about my fear of heights. And it will not be hard to avoid bragging when I tell you about how a number of years ago, I tried conquering Granite Peak with three other men. Cold, wet, and discouraged, we turned back before reaching the top. And I realized then that I like being in the mountains and next to them, but don't especially need to be on top of them.
I was reminded of this realization last November when my wife Lauren and I made an attempt to drive up Pike’s Peak before turning around near the top. The question first and foremost in that moment was not whether anyone else could have done it. Rather, the question was whether I could safely get us all the way to the top and back down again. Not being persuaded it would be wise to find out by going any further, I turned us around and we came back down.
This also reminds me of falling down the stairs with my eyes closed when I was very young. It was naptime, and my mother was having coffee in the living room with a friend of hers. To my irrational young mind, they would not see me sneaking by to go down to the basement and play with my toys if my eyes were closed. Needless to say, they certainly did notice me when I tumbled head over heels down the stairs because I wasn't looking where I was going.
On a similar note, it's been nearly four years since the last hunting trip. Hunting with friends who knew how was going to teach the skills and habits requisite for hunting with these sons of ours. But wouldn't you know it? The year we traded in the Hyundai Elantra for an F-150 was the first in at least a trio of years now in which none of the hunting we had talked about doing with said truck has happened. Yet the truck has still served us well, and it's a fine tool for getting around in and hauling people and things to various places.
Speaking of mountains and hunting, the fear of heights and not bagging any deer since 2018, let's talk about vasectomies. I don’t see them in the Bible. But has anyone stopped to consider that Jordan Peterson got suspended from Twitter for criticizing Ellen Page’s double-mastectomy in a way that Lobster Lord never would have had his criticism been directed toward men having themselves neutered?
A courageous person somewhere should consider the potential connection between gender reassignment surgeries and men having their tubes tied. The Lord told our forefathers Adam and Noah to be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it. Maybe that requires climbing mountains and shooting wild game sometimes. But again, I don't see self-mutilation in the Bible. And what is a man anyways?
